Clairfield International expands in India

Clairfield International and 7i Capital Advisors are pleased to announce that 7i has joined Clairfield as its exclusive partner firm for India. With the addition of 7i, Clairfield strengthens its position outside Europe in a key region of interest and further enhances its sector expertise to the benefit of worldwide clients in an array of industries.

7i was founded in 2013 by experienced investment bankers Abhijeet Biswas, Tapas Sarkar, and Manoj Patkar. With support from a robust staff of associates and analysts, 7i has positioned itself as one of the top firms in India and one of the few to focus on crossborder midmarket transactions.

The 7i team focuses on the sectors of healthcare & pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, telecom & media & technology, chemicals, business & financial services, and consumer goods & services. 7i also boasts a strong private equity advisory practice, offering growth and venture capital advisory, private equity exits, and partial and total divestment by founders to strategic buyers and private equity investors.  7i’s FX capital advisory facilitates optimization of capital structure by access to cheaper and efficient USD/EUR based financing.

Recent transactions closed by 7i include:

• The acquisition of Nicomac Cleanrooms Far East LLP, a leading Indian cleanroom manufacturing company by Taikisha Ltd, Japan.
• The acquisition of Biosense Technologies Private Limited, an emerging Indian point-of-care testing products company by PerkinElmer Inc, the US-based global healthcare giant.
• A strategic partnership between CPC Diagnostics Private Limited, a leading Indian in-vitro diagnostics products company and Everlife Asia, a Singapore-based medical devices platform of leading private equity player Everstone Capital.

In the last years, the team has executed over 30 transactions, many of them crossborder and involving major international groups.

Deal activity in India, as elsewhere, has been affected by the pandemic. At year end, however, Abhijeet Biswas sees the situation normalizing at a good pace, which can also be seen in overall deal statistics. The total number of deals in the year 2020 dropped by about 35% from 2019 while overall deal value rose by 7% from USD 75 billion to USD 80 billion. Strategic deals accounted for over 50% of the total deal value this year. Despite the uncertainties on account of the pandemic, India’s growth story remains attractive to investors with a long-term horizon.

“There are clear opportunities ahead, particularly in the crossborder segment,” says Abhijeet. “From my previous work with Clairfield, I knew that this partnership would be key to taking advantage of these opportunities. We look forward to bringing our Indian mandates to the worldwide sector experts at Clairfield and supporting the sector teams with input from India.”

“We are very pleased to begin 2021 by welcoming new partners in India,” says Alexander Klemm, executive chairman of Clairfield International. “The team is well known to Clairfield after years of previous collaboration and we know first hand that their work is top quality and the team can deliver. As we hope that pandemic recovery is on the horizon, we are pleased to be positioned to help our clients reevaluate strategic objectives and include India for inbound investments just as much as for Indian promoters, corporates and investment groups to draw on the Clairfield capabilities globally to assess existing investments or consider new outbound India strategic moves.”